Like spritzing an email with cologne, blowing kisses at a movie screen is a heartfelt romantic gesture that proves fruitless in attracting movie stars. Experience unrequited love with today's Groupon: for $13, you get two tickets, two medium drinks, and a large popcorn at Clova Cinema in Surrey (up to a $26 value).
Since its projector first flickered the Humphrey Bogart film Dead Reckoning in 1947, Clova Cinema has enchanted myriad audiences by hosting a bevy of new motion-picture releases. Friendly staffers frequently warm up crowds with side-splitting joke routines or frisbee tosses with old movie reels before lights dim and evening double bills fill the theatre’s single screen. After greeting the resident canine, Cupcake, children attending a matinee can enter for chances to win door prizes, and 18 annual opportunities bestow lucky adults with yearlong passes for two. Paired with abundant fountain drinks, popcorn flavoured with real butter and numerous seasoning salts rolls down tongues as enthralling stories unfold between credit sequences. Cinephiles brandishing their own popcorn container or butter-stained fedora receive the equivalent of a large popcorn for only $2.50.
Though Clova Cinema offers a rotating special-admission price, this Groupon represents the best deal available.
Clova Cinema
Some things about the Clova Cinema have changed over the years; as it passed from owner to owner, it has been a video-rental shop, a youth centre, and a stage for live performances. But despite its numerous incarnations, the rich red facades, the art-deco decorations, and the bright marquee have remained proudly in place. These features hearken all the way back to the theatre's 1947 opening, when Humphrey Bogart dominated the screen and popcorn was popped in gleaming machines instead of Buick-sized microwaves. Now, the cinema's single screen flickers to life with weekly evening and weekend matinee showings of current releases. The theatre is rife with family touches, from the real butter on the popcorn to Cupcake the dog, who is on hand at matinees to entertain guests before the show and sniff out unsilenced cell phones.